


Origins of Land and Sea

by emphemeron



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Kelpies, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mythology - Freeform, Possibly kelpies that is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:17:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4683386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emphemeron/pseuds/emphemeron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[kel·pie / noun<br/>1. a water spirit of Scottish folklore, typically taking the form of a horse, reputed to delight in the drowning of travelers.]</p><p>Will hadn't expected to enjoy drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very interested in the idea of modern mythology--in this case, I'm drawing from the idea of kelpies, in a way. I know Will grew up in the deep South in canon, but I really, really like writing autumn weather so. This is Virginia.

When it all began, it was fast and staggering. In future years, Will would look upon those few, delicate moments in his youth and recognize that the looming thought of dread had originated from this very place. He would peel back the wallpaper, shred the curtains from where they hung, and find all corners of the house stained with _his_ presence—and think, that his own atoms must’ve contained echoes of it as well.

It was midway through the second semester of his junior year when Will Graham turned in his seat and noticed someone who had not been there before.

He couldn’t be sure of it at first. When he locked his gaze on the sandy-haired boy at the rightmost corner of the classroom, the air about the maroon-eyed stranger was one of long practiced ease, present in the way he swept his hand across the desk to dust off eraser shavings and in the way he met Will’s eyes calmly. He then tilted his thin lips into a polite smile, one that Will hesitantly returned.

That could have been all—and in another life, it had been; Will had paid the stranger a thought or two then retreated back to the reality that he knew—had Will not stared a second too long and allowed curiosity to seep in. The gnawing sensation of the unknown mouthed at the base of his spine, and a thrill shot up when the strange boy’s smile curled at the edges in response to his acknowledgement. That came with its fair share of embarrassment though, so Will turned back around before anything more could slip into his mind.

The lecture was not a particularly enthralling one however—despite his lack of knowledge, Will found that he wasn’t especially interested in Baltic mythology, though it tied in well with the reading material his English professor had assigned for their class that quarter. Instead, he allowed his mind to slip again to the subject of the unknown student at the back of his class and why his presence had surprised Will so.

An itch at his shoulder reminded him of the other’s continued existence and perhaps his lingering stare. Will did not let himself check.

Will’s first thought was to excuse himself for letting the whole situation get to him as much as it had already; he was reclusive in the extremes, a kind of introversion that kept Will from forming strong friendships or even acquaintances. For this reason, his initial instinct was to blame his confusion on his complete lack of social standing at his high school, thinking that maybe this stranger was just one of many that’d slipped through the cracks in his perception.

Then glanced to his left and wondered if Cassandra Lee was aware that she was breaking out in hives not because of an insect bite she might’ve gotten while camping with her family the week before, but because of a bad reaction to the second HPV vaccine she’d gone for the day after returning. Or if Samantha Roger’s friends were aware of the increasing abuse she was experiencing at home, or if he should let his suspicions be known to the school’s guidance counselor.

It became glaringly obvious that not much had slipped through the cracks in this lifetime, especially not in such close proximity to him. But there was a boy sitting at the back of his fourth period English class that Will could not place a name to nor remember ever seeing before, and the thought that Will had gone nearly a half year in the same class as this stranger sent a wave of icy confusion over him once more.

Against his better judgment, Will glanced over his shoulder again.

The blond hadn’t moved in the few minutes since he’d last glanced over, though Will hadn’t really expected him to. He sat with his hands folded on his lap, eyes trained ahead on their professor, and that careful focus allowed Will a moment to examine the other, to see if perhaps a gesture or motion might jog his memory. No such thing happened—instead, the girl sitting directly behind Will gave him an odd look, part concerned and part irritated. He wanted to feel the latter emotion in return, but found that he only felt compelled to draw inwards again to shrink down to an unobservable size.

He missed how the stranger’s eyes flicked up to watch him again.

Will turned back around completely this time, ignoring the way the girl behind him—Amanda Berkeley, the left back defender on the girl’s soccer team—muttered some nasty expletive under her breath. The hands on the clock showed that the lesson would only continue for another fifteen minutes or so, and outside, raindrops plinked softly against the classroom window. Will tucked his arms against his sides and ignored the possibility of further investigation.

It prickled at the back of his mind.

The bell rang after what seemed like a whole separate hour; Will’s eyelids fluttered open, having shut some time earlier when talk of gods and goddesses became more than unbearable. He gathered up his things robotically and swung his backpack over his shoulder before giving one last glance back and then stifling a shocked noise.

The strange blond boy stood nearly toe-to-toe with him, his leather satchel swung diagonally across his chest and an apologetic smile playing on his lips. From this angle, Will was surprised to find the other only a couple of inches taller than himself but filled with a sort of self-awareness that almost made the stranger seem mountainous. Will unconsciously stepped to the side, granting the other passage.

“Thank you,” the other said, voice like mint-infused water or a spoon overflowing with agave. Will did not recognize the accent, but determined it to be of Eastern European origin, and it spread over him from chest to the soles of his feet. The other was only a foot from him, all high cheekbones and hair parted casually to the left due to his cowlick, his clavicle exposed when the neckline of his cream sweater was pulled to one side by his satchel strap. Will kept his eyes on that instead of the boy’s own.

“…No problem,” he muttered, nodding slightly and relieved when a few curls fell to shade his eyes.

The boy flashed him another smile and stepped around him. The classroom slowly emptied, but Will stood motionless amidst the crowd, eyes watching the rainfall outside and his reflection in the glass that wobbled with indecision.

After that encounter, there were very few places that the sandy-haired youth didn’t appear; Will knew this world was his own, but could not for the life of him recall being only five lockers away from the other boy, nor could he recall being in all but two classes with him. Will tried to keep to himself and not allow curiosity to grow like fungi on his skin, but the stranger stood at his side in the halls and two tables from him in the cafeteria and Will couldn’t help but wonder at how this had come to be.

Despite the air of self-assuredness about the newcomer, Will noticed how the other students seemed to part for him in droves when he walked by. The boy attended every lecture for the next month with him, but seldom spoke and seldom seemed to be acknowledged by any other than Will. Late into the month, when Will had gathered enough energy to engage one of his barely-acquaintances in conversation, he asked about the enigma that’d been plaguing him for the better part of November.

“Do you, um, know who that guy is?” he winced through the question, nodding discretely towards the blond, who was currently making his way to the library, schoolbooks tucked under his arm. Alana Bloom stood at his side and frowned just as the stranger rounded a corner.

“Who?” she asked, but the hallways were awash with students and the other was probably long gone by that time. Will sighed and shook his head.

The first and only words they’d spoken to each other remained that way. Will did not again find the energy or the nerve to assert his existence for a second time. He kept his thoughts concerning the blond to himself, even from Alana, one of the few people who put even a marginal effort into understanding him. But unquenched curiosity sprouted out from him in branches and vines, and when Will sat at home alone some nights, he contemplated the look in the other’s eyes when they locked with his.

“A couple of us were thinking of having a bonfire at the beach this Friday,” Alana told him that same day, an eagerness in her smile, “would you like to come along?”

“Was I invited?” Will asked with a teasing hitch in his voice, like it’d just rolled out of bed. They shared a bench in their second period Advanced Biology class, and as Will jotted notes down on their worksheet, Alana peered into the microscope. Will marveled at how she looked even more beautiful with her dark tresses tied up into a bun. Her lips twisted into a quasi-reassuring version of that smile.

“Not _explicitly_ …but I know no one will mind.”

The thought of it had his stomach in knots, but Will agreed nevertheless, and when Friday came around, the gawky, curly-haired boy sat by the edge of his bed and trembled. A single honk came from the car when it pulled into his driveway. Will’s mother passed him a thermos of coffee on his way out—the taste was mildly comforting.

He squeezed himself into the light blue Kia Sorento that probably belonged to Alana’s psychiatrist father and said his hellos to the various members of the group. Will knew all by face and name, but found that his own face had trouble piecing itself together when they greeted him in return; his penchant for in-depth observation only seemed to shoot him in the foot when he complimented Frederick Chilton on the sparse hairs he’d managed to grow around his chin. The round-faced med-school hopeful shot him a look out of the corner of his eye, probably taking it as a derisive remark. Will picked up on the annoyance, could not voice his true intentions with the statement in any tasteful way, and thought that perhaps the best course of action would be to shrink down into his seat.

He was glad he’d been pressed into wearing a sweater. Building the small put for the bonfire did cause some of them to break into a light sweat, but it was quickly frozen over by the frigid breeze wafting in from the beach. Will did up the buttons on his cardigan and sat by the small fire as Jack Crawford—another junior in his biology class that he knew Alana had known since childhood—fetched more firewood. Alana seated herself at his right.

“How many s’mores do you think you’ll want? We’ve got enough for three each if we ration the ingredients right.”

“That’ll be good.” He swallowed thickly, eyes darting to the ebbing tide. “Uh, thanks…again. For inviting me. And for…”

Something he’d always noticed about her was that Alana’s smile had the ability to never fade and yet always seem like it’d just reappeared. “No problem,” she brushed his words off, paying them respect but not blowing it out of proportion. “You can make it up to me by coming out to more of these.”

“If you keep inviting me, I guess I’ll have to.”

She shot him a look. “Lots of us care about you, Will. You’re smart enough to see that.” Before he could respond, Jack returned with his arms full and Alana was by his side in an instant, taking some of the firewood into her arms so they could begin unloading it. Will sighed and scooped up his thermos, taking another sip of the coffee he’d recently mixed with Bailey’s. It was warm in his belly and warm in his chest.

The sun descended below the horizon in a matter of hours, along with the temperature. Will grinned to himself behind his thermos when Jack chased his girlfriend, Bella, into the rising tide—her shrieks of outrage were accompanied by her pushing Jack right into the ocean, and he resurfaced spluttering and smelling of seaweed and salt. His mouth was sticky with marshmallow, but he readily accepted another when Alana pressed it into his hands and in return he passed her his coffee to sip on—it’d long gone cold, but the sweet trill of underage drinking gave it a new life.

Will participated as much as he could bring himself to, making a couple off-hand jokes mostly at Chilton’s expense. He sat off to the side, even when some of them brought out speakers and hooked up Alana’s iPod to them. Even Alana got up to dance at one point, the liquor loosening up her limbs and nerves—he hid his grin throughout the whole ordeal, but could not be talked into doing the same himself.

For the most part, he was left alone, most of his other classmates aware of his presence but relegating him to a corner fit for houseplants and nice trinkets. He wasn’t unused to the feeling of watching from the outside in—that landscape was a familiar place. They’d roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the open flame, and Will felt most at ease in the company of the discarded sticks.

“A little birdie told me I could find some company over here,” said a voice that Will didn’t immediately recognize. A ruggedly handsome face peered out from the darkness, embers dancing across his cheeks and the bridge of his crooked nose. Will felt his heart clench in his esophagus.

“Huh?” The noise escaped his throat before he could constrain it. “Shit, um, I mean—who told you that?”

The other boy settled onto the log beside him, clasping his hands in front of him and nodding in Alana’s direction. “That one over there.” Will’s heartbeat tripled in speed.

“Yeah, of course she did,” Will sighed and rubbed his jawline roughly with the palm of his hand.

“Don’t blame her. To be honest, I probably asked her. Glad I did though—what are you doing off here by yourself like this?”

“Keeping the bags company.” Will smiled wryly and just subtly enough that the other boy had to squint to see it. “Speak for yourself though, Matthew. Don’t you have someone to dance with?”

The swim captain’s eyes widened slightly. “You know who I am? Looks like I’m not the only one doing the observing around here.”

“I’m usually the one on this side of the looking glass.” He gave Matthew a tight-lipped smile that was returned by one that tripled in size.

“Fantastic—I’ll keep _you_ company then.”

The fire blazed before them, and from her vantage point, Alana smirked at her work. Will held himself like the world could fall apart at any moment, but she’d seen the looks Matthew Brown had been giving her lab partner, and there was nothing she wanted to see more than Will as an active participant in his own life. The two sat huddled off somewhere warm, nestled into their own skin, and Will’s body language gradually grew more open to the senior at his side.

Will thought on all of this days later, when the smoke and flames had cleared and when he’d woken up in his own bed with his own nightmares. The thought of friendship singed the roof of his mouth; the taste was something like ocean salt or nitric acid. He thought it might have its own appeal to some, but could not imagine why Matthew Brown would wish to seek it from him.

But it didn’t matter for long. They returned to the usual order of things the next day, Will camping out in his living room with books scattered out on the table in front of him as he scrambled to finish studying for his upcoming chemistry quiz. His skin still stunk of ash, but when he looked out the open window to the leaves strewn about his back lawn, nostalgia ached pitifully in his bones.

Monday haunted him with bitterness in her bones. Will got to school with a dull ache in his limbs that he didn’t understand, and when Alana asked him about it during biology, Will blamed it on some probable sickness. But his limbs hung heavy as lead weights, and Will trudged from class to class like he was carrying his own entrails in his outstretched arms. Alana looked at him with concern shining brightly in her steel blue eyes and laid a hand on his shoulder when they stood by his locker.

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay?” she asked, for the umpteenth time, laying her hand on his forehead. Will swatted it away.

“Yes. Probably. It’ll be fine.”

“I’ll carry you to the health center myself if you’re lying to me, Graham.”

Despite the swelling fever beneath his brow, Will’s lips split apart into a grin that threatened to tear him right in two.

Alana saw him off to his fourth period class, waiting at the door with him for the first couple of minutes while Will waited for his teacher to arrive. She chattered on about her classes and weekend plans as if those were the thoughts that composed her being, but Will saw the way her eyes examined the sallow complexion of his cheeks and the heavy bags beneath his eyes. He vibrated in his own skin, unsure of whether to be touched or reject the slowly developing friendship. It hurt to breathe.

A presence loomed behind him and alerted Will to the fact that he stood dead center in front of the door to the classroom. A soft apology was already on his lips when he made way for the student to pass through, but it got caught between the cracks in his lips when he noticed just who stood motionless and silent.

“Sorry,” he muttered, ducking his head when the blond boy’s customary smile bloomed forth. The other said nothing, but Will felt a lightness to him that hadn’t been there previously.

He missed the way Alana frowned, missed the way she glanced left and right to spot who he’d apologized to.

Will was eating orange slices in the Safeway parking lot on the hood of his dad’s pickup the next time he saw _him_. The strange blond boy was carrying a paper bag of fresh produce out of the grocery store when he noticed Will staring at him from across the lot. The sun was amber and vivid in those sunset hours, and Will’s whole body nearly went rigid when the tall boy began to walk in his direction.

He narrowly kept himself from sliding off the hood.

“We’ve been seeing each other quite often recently.” Those were the first words Will had heard from the other in close to two months, but that quality of quiet amusement and syrup never wavered. Will chewed on an orange to hide the fact that he had no idea what to say.

When they stood face-to-face, the clicking sensation beneath his breastbone paused momentarily for Will to take a breath then skipped forward into overdrive. The blond stranger stood close enough to touch, but just out of way and out of complete understanding, like Will could see him in shape and the peculiar way he smiled but the image of him was oddly strained around the edges. A paper-thin quality. Will wanted to wrap his hands around the other’s wrists and see if he could crumble them in two.

“How weird is that,” he choked out. His wrists throbbed like thumbs pressed against the veins.

“If fate is going to keep allowing for happenstances like this, we shouldn’t ignore it for any longer than necessary,” the other said, and there was that quality of mint and lemon water, soothing to the ear. Will hoped the acidity of the orange wouldn’t cause his own voice to break.

“Less fate and probably more coincidence, isn’t it?”

A twist on a smile played on the other’s lips as he shifted to one foot and balanced the sack of groceries on his hip, extending his hand out.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance—my name is Hannibal Lecter.”

The distance between their fingers was minimal—Adam reaching for God across the mortal plane, except Will did not know who was playing God in that moment. He crossed that distance, curling his fingers around Hannibal’s hand.

“Will Graham,” he said, hand hovering before his lips slightly to hide any food in his mouth.

The verbalization of his identity supposedly meant nothing, but it rattled in Will’s own head and he swore his grip on his— _Hannibal’s_ —hand became more solid. More compact. His eyes flicked up to Hannibal’s own, and they were red-red, like the sunset didn’t know who it was kidding with that color scheme, and it wasn’t until just then that Will realized how beautiful the other boy was up close. Then grappled with that thought. Then spat it out and thought that it didn’t matter, that those observations could be discarded without any more consideration. He pulled his hand back like it burned (it did).

“Will Graham,” Hannibal repeated, all canines and all warmth in the voice. Will did not allow himself to take notice of the way his pelvic bone clenched with something like nostalgia at the sound. “Well, Will, it was wonderful to meet you. I’m afraid I’ll need to cut our time short as I have other affairs to deal with, but we _will_ see each other soon.”

Will placed the remnants of an orange peel into a small plastic baggy at his side and nodded to his short-lived companionship with the other. “Possibly—at any rate, you know where to find me.”

“Eating oranges by yourself.” Hannibal’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Next time, I’ll bring something to snack on, too.”

He watched Hannibal walk off in the direction of a silver SUV, carefully placing his groceries on the passenger side before getting into the front seat. He did not look back at Will again as he drove off. Will didn’t know if he expected anything else.

Not a moment later, his father exited the Safeway with two bags of groceries in hand. The older man whistled a tune as he approached his son, favoring one leg as he walked.

“Did I see you out here with a friend?” his father asked, unlocking the driver’s side door and throwing the groceries into the back. Will thought for a moment then shook his head.

“No. Just someone I know.”

When they drove off, the smell of salt water and citrus followed him home, under his skin and nails.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this was supposed to be strictly Hannigram, but it seems as though I've hinted slightly to something between Matthew and Will? It feels natural though. Also, I'm so! so! sorry for taking so many months to update? I've been at university and writing papers instead of fics. This is no excuse. I've been lazy. I hope this makes up for it (also extended the story a bit because I wanted a bit more pacing). 
> 
> Something I should also mention is that I often grow dissatisfied with chapters and come back to add whole new segments/dialogue, so just. Keep a lookout for me potentially scrapping whole parts of this/adding new things. I have a very chaotic style of writing--which is to say, no style at all. All impatience and no planning.

 Will awoke to the taste of seaweed coating the insides of his mouth, lake water running through his arteries. He rebelled against the urge to gag, but pressed two fingers to his tongue and felt around, panic zipping up his spinal column when the pads of his fingers felt only the rippling bumps on his tongue but the sensation didn’t fade away. It couldn’t have been later than dawn, the light of the sun barely peeking through the gaps between the blinds—single-minded anxiety rose to the forefront of his thoughts, nevertheless.

That feeling persisted into later weeks; occasionally, Will would feel a substance like water drip from his ears and nose when all signs pointed to the contrary—a glance in the mirror, a person looking on him with no change in expression. He told no one and placed his faith instead in careful analysis, that he would either see proof of this ailment or it would fade into obscurity.

But it clung to his ribs and stomach lining, a sticky substance that threatened to overflow into his lungs if he moved too abruptly. Will figured it to be a sign of an impending flu, mucus clogging his insides, and told Alana so when she inquired again on the state of his health in biology class. The constant barrage of questions had become routine for her and it was beginning to drive Will to the point of outward annoyance, which he rarely allowed to become visible around Alana. He tried to express this in gentle words, but they tumbled out with his characteristic roughness.

He ached to be porous and shed his inner lining.

The land surrounding Will’s house was rife with wilderness; thick forests perpetually clogged with fog flanked their small home from all sides save the front, and Will found himself drawn into their depths more than once as autumn opened its jowls and swallowed the city whole. The looming, gelatinous sickness trapped within his chest felt most dormant when he stood at the forest’s edge and peered into it. When he immersed himself within that world, the sickness vanished altogether.

Because of this, the woods behind his house because a safe haven in the midst of what felt like constant submersion. Weekends spend reading with his back against tree trunks or sitting upon fallen logs, walking the dogs two to three times a day through that labyrinth of evergreens, jogging up the winding hill directly behind his house; Will came to know the forest intimately and felt his breath become heady but clear in its atmosphere.

Neither of his parents minded much, but cautioned him against going alone, as farther patches of the woodlands were known for the more dangerous fauna. When his father and his mother weren’t available to accompany him on long treks, one or more of the dogs were to, which Will never objected to. Though most of the larger megafauna in the area had been decimated nearly two centuries prior to his birth, Will understood the need to be accompanied in case of emergency.

That same worry present in Alana’s demeanor extended to his home life at times, but Will paid it no mind, content to reserve all such thoughts for when they came to light.

“You free this weekend?”

When Beverly Katz leaned across his desk in fourth period, posture too relaxed for someone Will had only spoken to a handful of times in his life, Will could only hope he didn’t outwardly radiate his displeasure. Or lack of comprehension. Or the dread that seemed to sink between his teeth when they clattered in the cold weather. The hand he’d been using to take notes paused in its ministrations, and Will looked up fully, eyes trained on the bridge of her nose. A wide grin forced her jaw downward, exposing the cherry red flesh of her tongue and strings of saliva between plush lips.

She had turned to face him from the desk immediately in front of his, straddling her chair backwards and thrusting her chin up with an air of all knowing. As if she’d only asked the question for the sake of politeness. Will regarded her from the nose down.

“Why?”

He didn’t intend for his response to come off rudely or be taken in such a way, but that ever-present sickness pounded behind his red-rimmed eyes—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept longer than four hours in a sitting—and awoke a certain vexation in him that couldn’t be tampered down. Beverly didn’t seem shocked however; the grin she wore only widened.

“My parents leave Friday on a cruise, so I have the place to myself for the next two weeks,” the long-haired girl explained, “Alana said you’ve been coming out with us lately, so if you have some free time Saturday, you oughta stop by the thing I’m throwing.” His initial reaction was to politely decline the offer, content to once again sit out, but the words caught between his vocal folds.

Thin tendrils of companionship and inclusion dangled from the sky overheard. Will felt them caress his shoulders, wrap around his wrists and forearms, and knew they might not reach him in a month’s time if they remained unacknowledged. Beverly sat with her chin jutting out, a messenger of that world so out of reach, with its seas of lapis lazuli, mountains that broke through to some cosmic world, and defiance of all conventions and order he’d ever known. Will’s arms trembled.

“I could,” he said quickly, words stumbling into each other. That seemed to please the girl with the feline-like smile, for she drew back into that unknown world.

“You should! It’s a BYOB type-fest though so…bring your own beer.” At this she winked. “Or don't. At least bring yourself.”

He thought that perhaps he would. Will didn’t wish to clamber for understanding, did not think himself capable of transcending to that level of self-possession, but the underlying desire craned its neck in his direction. There was that world and there was him. In between that, a veil that seemed to contain all heroes’ quests—Gilgamesh to Odysseus, and all the suffering inherent in such journeys.

When class ended, Will dragged himself back to the real world, Alana waiting outside the door for him. Beverly caught up to them in an instant and re-extended the invitation, this time to both Will and Alana, the latter of which accepted without hesitation. Will heard his ears ring with blood.

He excused himself from Alana’s company at lunch, citing a need to see the nurse. It wasn’t painful to see how readily Alana was to believe him, but it did come with its own sense of isolation. Will left the two dark-haired girls at the entrance to the cafeteria and doubled back, leaving through the front then circling the perimeter of the school so that he ended up by the bleachers overlooking the football field. During the warmer weeks, this place might’ve been packed with sunbathing students on their lunch break, but the coming of autumn had chased off all but him.

Will clutched his backpack to his side as he sat down, the metal rocking and clanging beneath his sneakers. The cold wind prickled his skin. Above him, the sky darkened with approaching heavy clouds. Will pulled out a sandwich wrapped in Saran wrap from his bag and pulled back the plastic, taking a bite of chicken, pesto, and sundried tomatoes. He crushed it to paste beneath his teeth. He closed his eyes when his lids felt too heavy to overcome. He breathed in rhythmically.

“Will!” The calling of his own name startled him. Not enough to draw him from that place in his mind, though Will forced the sand beneath his eyelids to recede and opened his eyes. Hannibal stood at the bottom of the bleachers, his leather satchel resting against his hip and a kind smile aimed up at the junior.

Will remained silent as he took in the sight of the other student who appeared almost miragelike in the wind. Hannibal stood motionless in the grass, smile never wavering, and Will wondered if he’d yet opened his eyes. Blond hair, usually immaculate, was wind-tossed, ruffled by the breeze and wild. Hannibal’s hands were buried in his coat pockets, standing at full height and looking for all the world like it was he who stood and looked upon the Earth with that gentle twitch of his lips. 

“…Hello,” Will finally said in response, waving weakly down at the other. Hannibal tilted his chin up.

“Waiting on someone?”

Another pause. “No.”

“Mind if I join you then?”

Instead of responding verbally, Will nodded curtly, surprised at the unexpected company and unsure of how to deal with it. Hannibal registered his acquiescence and set to climbing up the steps of the bleacher, hardly making a sound as he ascended up to where Will was and never taking his maroon eyes off the other. He seated himself not even a foot from the shivering boy, shifting his bag to his lap.

He didn't meant for them to lapse into silence, but Will’s tongue was heavy in his mouth with a sandpaper-like texture to it. Hannibal seemed more than content to remain the way they were, his eyes drawn out into the distance where they watched the approaching clouds and the gulls higher still. Will wanted to bury his face in a book or return to that place behind his house where he could fade into the sky’s gradient hue.

When Hannibal finally did tear his gaze away from the far reaches of the sky, it was only to remove a Tupperware filled with sausages and roasted red grapes from his bag. Will tried to keep his eyes on his own affairs, but when he caught a glimpse of the other’s carefully prepared meal in his peripheral vision, shame bloomed like a bruise and he folded the cling wrap back over his half-eaten sandwich, shoving it out of sight. His stomach gurgled quietly; soft enough that Will could pretend the sound had originated somewhere else.

“…Do you like to cook?” Will asked tentatively, looking down at the ridges in his fingers. The sound of metal clinking against glass broke him from that stare to where Hannibal pushed his food around for a couple seconds before spearing a sausage. The blond boy’s nose crinkled as he frowned.

“The cafeteria doesn’t have anything that I have a taste for.”

Will eyed the other boy from the corner of his eye, still unsure how to approach this new addition to his school life. When he thought of how the other’s voice had burrowed into the back of his mind, an inkling of revulsion sprung up from some long buried abyss. A chasm covered with leaves and twigs. He tried to avoid the thought, but the heat from the other’s thigh was almost palpable in the draughty weather.

Hannibal continued to eat in silence, this time with his eyes following the motions of Will’s fingers as they twisted together, noting the birthmarks on the inside of his left index finger and probably the dirt trapped beneath his blunt nails. The days he’d spent in the forest had left their marks on him in the form of scabs on his ankles, cuts along his outer thighs from spindly branches, and residual dirt on his forearms and clothing when he hadn’t gotten around to laundry or showering. Will thought to hide those blemishes then realized they’d spoken loud enough already.

“Did you need time away?” Hannibal asked when he wasn’t staring. That was a brief moment. Will held onto an arm and held it close to his body.

“I, generally—um—react to the situations going on around me.” He scratched at the nape of his neck until there was an itch. “But there’s nothing going on.”

“No new stimuli from the people around you? Tired of friends and family?”

“No, but like—I don’t know, there’s something at the back of my head.” That persisting headache behind his eyes where it pinched the bridge of his nose and Will swore he must’ve seemed cross-eyed at some points during the day. “Concentrating on talking to people and trying to feel what they feel or just trying to radiate that back—I just need some space and some silence, I guess.”

“I’ll help you out however I can.”

“Hm.” Lingering distaste clogged the space between his epiglottis and vocal folds. There was a quality about Hannibal that made him seem reflective, as if Will could speak the words he’d found trapped within him and the other would receive them without complaint, and he nearly did so. Admittance to his ill health, the unquenchable need for companionship but how Will knew himself to be so far from it—that skyward ideal with all its glass ceiling and rose-tinted walls, but how the ground beneath him could only collapse in response to that desire to be there, too.  “I can’t…give it a name.”

“Boiled down to your main components; unable to escape that bone fortress in your skull long enough to feel a genuine connection to anyone else,” the other boy surmised, his tone assuming all mysteries contained within Will Graham and attempting to evolve into a being capable of possessing that knowledge.

Will clicked his teeth together, resisting the urge to scowl or spill out his irritation at the thought of anyone trying to verbalize that so intimate to him. “It’s not that I don’t want to—I’m just sick.”

He lost the nerve he’d quickly gained, only more unsure about how to perceive the one at his side, with all his body warmth and attempts at understanding. The effort didn’t feel flimsy, that there might be an element to Hannibal that wished to know more than his skin, but it grated at Will. He, with his tightly wound inner-self, a perception of the world so vivid that it felt cheap to ruminate on it.

“Nothing to react to,” Hannibal repeated. He brought the glass bowl to below his chin and took several more, well-spaced bites.

The air tasted stale and dry against his tongue, Will thought after inhaling more than his fair share of it. The contents of his stomach sloshed again and the teenager clutched at it beneath the bulk of his grandfatherly sweater, patting at the skin on his belly as if that might quell any lingering hunger. It didn’t. Warmth rose to his cheeks, his heartbeat staccato when he wishes it to be anything but.

Hannibal tapped on his shoulder. When Will looked over at his newfound companion, the other held out the blunt end of the fork he’d been holding, sausage already speared.

“Here,” the boy with those eyes like garnet (something valueless in that it could not be attained), “Have some.”

Dread and shame didn’t build up beneath Will’s breastbone, but something similar in shape did. Will couldn't deny the fact that—bless his mother and her cooking—Hannibal’s lunch was much more appealing, the surface slightly singed from being recently grilled and the aroma soft though already nipping at the tip of his tongue. But his fingers trembled against his thighs, hesitation a wall seemingly insurmountable—the offer felt cruel in its consideration. Will stuttered out a polite refusal and glanced sharply to the left.

“I’m not giving you something to react to, Will,” Hannibal admonished from the opposite direction in the wind. “Just have some.”

At that, Hannibal reached over and literally lifted Will’s hand to grasp the fork, all but guiding it to his mouth. Instinctively, Will searched the field around them for wandering eyes, a tendril of self-awareness making him cognizant to the fact that he should not allow himself to be seen being practically fed. However, he did, and knew Hannibal’s eyes burned into the side of his head while it occurred—and Will’s skin felt hot, scalded beneath Hannibal’s skin where their hands met, where Hannibal’s hand closed over Will’s. That sensation of heat permeated the surrounding world in its entirety—the brisk sting of autumn lost its liquid quality, where once it had pooled into his pores and drenched the body in gooseflesh and sweetness, it now appeared almost motionless, a ghost haunting its own corpse.

Will bit into the sausage, saliva leaking into his mouth and the sweet tang of cooked meat trickling into the back corners of his palate. He wanted to chew methodically and give his thanks to Hannibal—handsome face expectant and reassuring, his eyes mere slits—for what Will could only deem as almost sacred, but it caught within his teeth as well. He swallowed before he’d finished chewing it all and nearly choked.

“ _Shit_.” Will coughed out the expletive, covering his mouth with both hands to catch anything he accidentally spat out. Though he luckily hadn’t, Hannibal quickly reached into his bag to pull out some tissues for Will, letting the other boy clean off his hands and lips. Will’s cheeks burned so scarlet in that moment, open-faced embarrassment creeping out from the corners. He swallowed the rest of the meat, down and down and down. “Shit—I’m so sorry—”

“No worries; are you alright, Will?” The older boy—or so he seemed; there were no tufts of grey hair poking out from his sideburns, but Hannibal appeared to possess a sense of timelessness, like his heart would stop beating the moment the Earth’s did—rubbed small circles on his back, giving Will whatever time he needed. The realization of that increased his shame tenfold.

“If it makes up for embarrassing myself, that was amazing,” Will admitted to the boy at his side, laughing nervously. Hannibal didn’t respond to the admission, merely smiled that tiny, inscrutable smile that so melded into the stratosphere.

The bell signaling the end of their lunch period rang not moments later, but Will barely heard the sound over the static noise that seemed to fill the gap between himself and Hannibal. Had the courtyard been populated by more than just them, Will imagined that it wouldn’t have mattered—the other’s eyes were red-red, like a dream that Will once had come to being, and the sides of his face and lips were of a geometry foreign to Will, but he wished to know them. The hand against his back continued to press intimacy and crooning acknowledgement of his existence into his flesh,

Will thought that, had Hannibal been a girl, he might’ve been tempted to kiss him. As it was, he struggled against the incessant need to latch his fingers onto Hannibal’s shoulders to drag him closer. Considering both of those thoughts brought a newfound sense of shame. The tethers between him and the real world were strained enough; he didn’t need this to pose further problems.

“I should get going to class,” Will said (probably whispered when contrasted with the frightful pounding of his heart) and knew he was withdrawing emotionally from the situation, hoping to enclose himself again in those old feelings.

The way Hannibal smiled at him influenced the flux and flow of his shame, but it somehow held precedence regardless. They stood up together, packing up their belongings, and clambering down the bleacher stairs side by side; Will’s legs wobbled like he hadn’t used them in centuries, like he’d sat in some dilapidated castle on some old throne, the room barren and dark, and Hannibal by his side there, too. But Hannibal moved with a fluidity he envied (or justified so), his plaid slacks making him look sprightly and older than he was; he didn’t stumble over his ratty, untied shoelaces the way Will did. When Will turned to face him at the base of the bleachers, the difference between them was comical and struck Will abruptly.

“You don’t have to keep doing this.” It slipped out, a thought honing in on its lost home, but Hannibal’s face didn’t even twitch in surprise. Will’s lips slacked when he realized what he’d said and his pelvic muscles clenched in low dread, slowly boiling over. Hannibal tilted his head to the left.

“Doing what, Will?”

The scruffier young man narrowed his eyes up at the smiling blond, enigmatic like a piece of art. Mona Lisa smile, eyes like the Gates of Hell. He was immaculately put together, and Will loathed the carefree twinkle in the other’s eyes and loathed the way he knew he’d think about it at five a.m. Will roughly slipped his arms into his backpack straps, not bothering to respond.

“Wait.”

He paused almost instinctually, and then Hannibal was ducking his head so close to his and bringing his hand up to run his thumb underside Will’s eye. His skin was soft-soft, and his eyes so much redder at the close proximity; both their breaths were warm. Will felt it on his skin and cheeks and brows and stomach and liver and esophagus—convalescing, and how he wanted to imbibe it all, hear that voice flowering with mint and lavender trickle down his spine in the dead of night or wash away into the lakes outside his house. Deities hid beneath the bleachers, perhaps, or had come out from their slumber in tree hollows to mock and jeer.

Hannibal pulled back. “Sorry; you had an eyelash.”

Will felt dizzy. “I’ll…see you.”

“Of course you will.”

“Stop making promises.”

“I haven’t made a single one yet.”

“You’re too close to it.”

Both of them were too close—teetering on the precipice of a certainty Will waited for with bated breath, but there was snow on the cliff side. And they were too, too close to that edge, and Will didn’t remember the lengths they’d run to find that place, over what hills and valleys and between what fjords. He’d once sat in class, omniscient in a sense, god-like not through immortality but through the awareness of it—the acute sensation of sand slowly filling the limbs and hearts of all around him.

Hannibal quirked an eyebrow. “ _I’m_ too close?”

“Are you implying that _I’m_ closer?”

“Don’t worry,” Hannibal reassured him after a beat of silence, with a smile that crinkled all corners of him, eyes narrowing, “I’ll catch up with you soon.”

Several days later, Matthew caught up with Will outside his locker.

The whole sky was scorched peach pink that day, other colors drawing their hue from the floral shade, blossoming brightly. Will waited in the school’s innards for his father to pick him up, rummaging through his locker in the last few minutes before he knew the other would be there. A low thrumming echoed through the corridors, a rumble deep in the building’s underbelly emerging from the furnaces that dwelt in the basement, speaking to each other in drawn out groans. Will packed his books with no small degree of paranoia, head still twice as large in his sickness.

“Are we to grow so far apart?” Will bit his tongue at the abruptness of the other’s presence and words, arms clutching his knapsack in a strangling hold and flinching. At his side, Matthew leaned casually against the locker adjacent to his, arms folded across his chest.  The other, with his eyes perpetually lit up in some undefined amusement and lips on the brink of twitching, cocked an eyebrow at Will as he flushed an angry shade of red ( _still dull in comparison_ , he thought reflexively with no small amount of irony).

“I suppose not if it’s up to you,” Will snapped, mild frustration from the unexpected arrival of company crushing his lungs up against his ribs, but regretted it almost instantly upon consideration. Matthew, for his part, merely flicked his lips up into a grin that wormed its way back into Will’s good books. He checked his watch momentarily before determining that he had enough time for conversation.

“You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Matthew asked sans preamble, tilting his head slightly in some centuries’ old curiosity, eyelids oddly half-lidded. Some great bird of prey waiting up in the rafters. Will frowned.

“Friday?”

“Not any other.”

“…For what though?”

“Oh, that’s not just polite-speak for _no_ , is it?”

Will scowled at his teasing tone, slamming his locker door shut and making his way past the swim captain, assuming that the other would follow him out. “No.”

Below them, the school throbbed like a beast on the verge of self-actualization, a creature of its own design. Will felt his bones clench in some similar rhythm, but thought to ignore it, unable to stomach the thought of his own vulnerability for even a second longer. Matthew followed him from his locker to the front doors of the school, as he was wont to do, his own backpack only slung over one shoulder.

“My bad, my bad. I’m being cloying,” Matthew apologized with thick glee still stuck between his teeth like strings of mango not quite ripe. Will’s back molars clacked together at the mischief still present on the other’s face, as if he didn’t understand the rawness of all encounters or the physical strain Will felt under the weight of his sore muscles, tightening bones, and head clogged with fluids. He had half a thought to properly explain his miserable attitude to the other, but Matthew kept talking like it was nothing. “Beverly’s thing on Friday—are you going?”

“ _Oh_.” A distinct sense of remembrance followed by unease rolled over him. So he had made arrangements to do so, but that’d been before he’d woken up two mornings ago with his cheek pressed against the cool porcelain bowl of the toilet, heaving his stomach out one breath at a time. Something far more brutal than a mere cold had seized him by the lapels and wrenched him straight out of normal thought.

“I took you for slightly more articulate, Will.”

“You’ll take me for slightly _nothing_ and deal with it.”

Matthew frowned, suddenly cognizant to Will’s true state and the growing ire present in the boy who seemed to sway on his feet. Before Will could get a word in edgewise, Matthew scooped up an elbow, making to steady him. Will grimaced through the grimy layer of sweat that seemed to bead at his hairline, wanting nothing more than to be home and swathed in flannel blankets. The upperclassman placed a hand to Will’s brow and hissed at the feel of warm slick against his palm.

“Jesus, Will, you’re really hot—do you have anyone coming to pick you up?”

“Yeah,” Will confirmed, eyes watering slightly from the ache behind them, “my da’. He should be…he should be out…here soon.” Matthew looped an arm around Will’s waist and hoisted him up slightly to support his weight, helping the other out the front doors and down the stone staircase that lead to the parking lot, scanning for someone waiting in a car.

Will struggled slightly in his hold, growling, “I’m not that bad, Matthew, you can—I can walk on my own.” Temperament frayed by whatever had burrowed into his head some months ago and only grown more potent in that time. He felt like a thing returning to death in small increments—a finger, a rib, a nasal cavity, all fleeing the realm of the living for some soothing balm in the afterlife.

Matthew ignored the complaints with all the grace expected of him, probably a couple seconds short from scooping the other up off his feet entirely. When he finally caught sight of a pickup truck running at the other end of the lot, he directed Will that way with him, allowing for Will’s slightly slowed speed.

“I’ll tell Beverly for you,” Matthew promised, helping Will into the car while his father fretted, asking questions that Will simply had few answers to and throwing the spare blanket from the backseat onto the sweating younger boy. “Take care of yourself; sleep as much as you can, okay? If you want, I can even come by to drop off your homework.”

“M’not sick,” Will muttered, tucked into his seat and unable to keep his eyes from shutting. “Just resting my eyes. You don’t have to.”

Their proximity was limited, both due to the swelling in Will’s head that seemed to push all other life-forms to some distant solar system with foreign geometry and due to Will’s dad all but snapping at Matthew to leave so he could take his son home. Nevertheless, the space between them was dripping with jazz and honey, in the way of Alana or Hannibal, comforting and distressing in its newness.

“I’ll come ‘round. As soon as I can, but definitely Sunday to drop off work.”

“Why would I want work when I’m sick?” Will mumbled to himself then listened with rapt interest to Matthew’s laughter streaming in through the car window. The other boy stepped back and away from the car, letting Will’s dad drive off with his son still absentmindedly rubbing the elbow Matthew had cupped and wondering whether things could ever be that way. If attaining the intimacy from that subliminal space could only ever occur in sickness; if the foreshadowing of death could occur the exact moment its cause had realized itself.

From the front of the car, Will forgot Big Questions like black holes and super symmetry and tried to pull from his lungs some small word of offering. Some plea to an ancient, sleeping god to wake him from this reverie.

Above the parking lot, peering out from a third floor window and watching as Matthew paced off to his own car, Hannibal’s lip curled up almost unremarkably: but his eyes were red-red, like some picture of the sky in the coming of the horsemen. He felt his entrails stir, and from his pant leg water leaked out onto the floor in rivulets, spreading out and out around him into a puddle that he sank back into.


End file.
